Press - what people say about APC-201210-15587

APC: A progressive organisation to warm the heart

Johan and I often get to feel very despondent about various things out there in the world; environmental issues, political corruption, abuse of human rights, consumerism, and poverty. We notice how often conversations of any meaning end up in what we call the doom and gloom scenario, which we deal with by saying we must just try to focus on what we can do in our own environment. So how wonderful it is to encounter an organisation like APC, which does something important globally in a progressive and heart-warming way.

APC (Association for Progressive Communications) first came to us 8 years ago – were in fact the very first workshop we had here. And if we were cheered by them then, now two visits and 8 years later, our admiration for them has only grown.

It’s not just the nature of their commitment to encourage free and open internet to create a more just world (mission statement). Nor the fact at they execute this commitment in real and tangible local and global projects (e.g. helping women activists build websites and other communication strategies, inserting gender issues into policy at various levels, helping people tell their stories of abuse and harassment online). Nor is it that they are sustainable – despite not only funding challenges, but the fact that since they come from all over the world, they connect largely in cyberspace.

But it is how they do things. Then as now we see a group of mostly (but not exclusively) women with extraordinary commitment (in fact most of the people who came now came 8 years ago). They work incredibly hard, yet integrate into their work laughter and play, caring and respect, and they conduct themselves in an entirely non authoritarian way – whatever their organisational structure.

This particular set of two workshops at Fynbos included, (for the first workshop) staff, board members, APC members and partners developing the APC Strategic Plan for 2013-2016.
The second workshop was a gathering of all partners working on an APC project called “End Violence: Women’s rights and safety online” (For more on this project see http://www.apc.org/en/node/15007/)